Rigny (watching the world go by)

Friday evening in Gray – Karen working out Saturday’s walking tour

Friday looked like it was going to be no less hot than the rest of the week had been and, as we were going to move on to Gray, I drove the car there early in the morning then cycled back to Mantoche.  Although Gray wasn’t that far away, the cycle ride was four kilometres longer as the path was on the other side to the mooring I had to cycle back past the boat before finding a river crossing.  Karen went for an early morning run in order to avoid the heat and we met as we were crossing the river in the opposite directions.  She told me that the marbled whites were out in force near the flood gates so I stopped and spent a happy 20 minutes watching them.  I also managed to get my first decent picture of a male so I was happy.

Male marbled white

Once we were all back at the boat we set about leaving for Gray.  The Saône was still heavily wooded on either side and we didn’t pass any boats on the journey but did spot a pleasant looking wild mooring that Karen rapidly made notes about.

The Saône on Friday morning

After an hour or so we were approaching Gray which, being an old boating town, had quays on both banks that would take dozens of boats so there was no danger of not finding somewhere to moor.

Approaching Gray

We were surprised to find there was only one other boat moored there as when we checked on our scouting trip the previous Friday it seemed to be jam packed.   Token-operated water and electricity bornes are provided on one stretch of the quay on the left bank.  The token mechanism hasn’t been working for a while so both water and electricity are free.  This was rather fortuitous as it meant we could have electric fans going in an effort to keep air circulating.  It also meant we could use the electric kettle to avoid adding extra heat by using the gas.

We had a quick look around town and found the tourist office where we picked up a couple of leaflets.  It was refreshing but strange to finally see the bars and restaurants doing a good trade now they are fully open and tourists have started arriving in France.  Even though we hadn’t had full sun all day it felt the hottest day yet and we had to keep exercise to a minimum for Buddy.

Buddy finally moved out of the shade later in the evening

On Friday we cruised four miles through no locks.

On Saturday we did our tour around Gray and one of first places we visited was a lavoir down by the river.  This one was built in 1825 in the nearby village of Mont-le-Franois but was relocated to Gray in 1972 where it became the tourist information office.  That was a good idea at the time but a new tourist office has been built since then, so the lavoir building is now closed down and looking in rather a sorry state.  Being a river town, Gray used to have a series of bateaux lavoirs, the last one being taken out of use as late as 1945.  Bateaux lavoirs were large and even had furnaces on board for boiling the laundry.  Near to the relocated and unloved lavoir was a war memorial dedicated to those townsfolk who died in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-1.

Franco-Prussian war memorial

The medieval part of town started by the river and led up to the old fortifications at the top of the hill. 

One of the two streets leading to the top of town

Soon after starting up one of the narrow streets, we came out into a small square where two houses with corbelled towers stood in opposite corners.  Corbel was a new word to us and refers to the projection from a building that supports a structure above it.

Left hand building dates from 1500s and the right hand one from a century later

Every so often alleys led off to the sides forming small courtyards of housing; a mixture of well-kept and run-down dwellings.  Some of the better looking places were operating as restaurants.

Halfway up the hill a side street opened up into a large square with a hospital at the far end.  This was built in the first half of the 18^th century and the inscription high up on the front wall indicates it was built for the poor and unfortunate.   A little further on, a commemorative ceramic tiled plaque on the front of a building indicated that it housed the first printing press in Gray.  

Printing press established in 1789

Around the corner was a tower that was built as a grain store in the 15^th century; the gable at the side being added 200 years later.

The corn exchange

A little square by the corn exchange was apparently the venue for medieval folk festivals although the water fountain wasn’t so old being built in 1808.

Little fountain square

Next was a much larger square with the impressive town hall standing along one side:

Gray’s hôtel de ville

As we were now near the top of the town, we went in search of the remains of ramparts around the original Gray castle.  When we found the walls, they looked quite promising and followed them to find the 12^th century Paravis tower.

Unfortunately the tower was covered in netting

Taking a rest at the top we had a good view over modern Gray and along the Saône valley.

Gray below us

On the way back down, we also passed the cathedral that was rebuilt in the 15/16^th centuries, the original church having been destroyed during the wars of Louis XI.  

The cathedral

Back at the boat we spent the rest of the day in the shade of the trees alongside while people-watching and admiring the many large houses along the river front.  An old lady came out of one of them and sat near us.  We’d noticed her the doing the same thing the previous afternoon, alternating between, reading, knitting and completing puzzles in a book.  This time we had a good long chat, and she was lovely as she deliberately spoke slowly which is something so many people seem unable to do however hard they try.

She explained that her house was built in the beginning of the 19^th century and her family had always lived there.  In her working life, she was a vet and now lived on her own as all her children had families of their own and her husband had died.  She was over 80 years old and remembered when the waterfront at Gray was packed with barges rather than today’s pleasure boats.  Commercial traffic stopped using the highest 150 kilometres of the river from Maxilly-sur-Saône through Gray and further upstream some while ago.

Gray has a bridge across the river at each end of town so later in the evening we went for a walk down the river to the lower bridge and back up the other side.

The house opposite our mooring which was built for the local vinegar distillery owner

The upper bridge back into Gray

Later in the evening we were entertained by a spectacular lightning storm which gave way to rain as we went to bed but it made for a more comfortable night’s sleep.

After breakfast on Sunday, we moved further upriver to a place called Rigny.  Unlike Gray and Mantoche our new mooring was on a lock cut which was built to bypass the river with a lock at the downstream end.  

Rigny lock cut 

As soon as we moored up, Buddy was straight off the boat and settled down in the shade of a handy bush.

Buddy being sensible

After mooring up we walked back to Gray to fetch the car and as we drove back the sun disappeared and black clouds started rolling in.  We got back just in time as we had a torrential downpour for half an hour which cooled the atmosphere and the rest of the day remained breezy and overcast.  We were lucky compared with Doubs which is in the same region, where hailstones were so large that car windscreens were smashed.  

Narrowboat sized mooring in the Rigny lock cut

On Sunday we cruised three miles up two locks.

The week ahead looks like we will have temperatures back to the right side of 30 degrees with some rain so it will be quite a change from what we’ve been used to recently.